Famous Jeffrey Pine tree (Pinus jeffrey) situated on Sentinel Dome, Yosemite National Park, U.S. A full moon rises over the evening alpenglow light illuminating the peaks of the High Sierra Mountains.
It took thousands of storms to pummel the Azure Window into the limestone sea cliffs of Malta’s Gozo Island, but just one to finish it off. The iconic site in Dwejra Bay was one of the island-nation’s most popular natural attractions—it was even featured briefly in the HBO series “Game of Thrones”—before it toppled in March 2017. To see other impressive sea arches visible from a sunbathers vantage, head to the White Chalk Cliffs coastline of Etretat in Normandy, France. You can even walk beneath the impressive Falaise Aval at low tide.
The super-salty Dead Sea isn’t gone yet, but it is shrinking at an alarming rate—water levels have dropped more than three feet each year for the last several years. As a result, thousands of sinkholes have appeared, signalling a looming water-shortage crisis in the region.
The Everest summit in Nepal got a little easier to reach in late May 2017 when a massive boulder some two hundred feet from the top appeared to have disappeared. Experts think the sheer ‘Hillary Step’—named for Sir Edmund Hillary who called it one of the most challenging features on the mountain—loosened in a 2015 earthquake. But now, new surveys by China and Nepal released on Feb. 9, 2021 reveal the storied peak is actually 29,031.69 feet above sea level, two feet higher than previously recognised.
In spring 2017, an entire river in Canada’s Yukon territory vanished seemingly overnight. The culprit was the retreat of the massive Kaskawulsh Glacier whose meltwater diverted from the Slim River to feed a different river. Scientists called it the first case of “river piracy” in modern times. These changes are also shrinking the Yukon’s largest lake. You can see Kluane Lake’s receding shoreline along Alaska Highway 1 and from points within Kluane National Park and Reserve.
Around 150 homes and popular black sand Kaimu Beach were lost when a slow-moving lava flow overtook Hawaii's Kalapana village in the early 1990s. Kilauea Volcano continues to erupt today and to date it has added more than 500 acres of new land to the big island. It’s possible to see the newest stretches from lava boat tours departing Pahoa.
When the precarious thread of Entrada sandstone spanning 71 feet across the top of the freestanding “Wall Arch” in Arches National Park gave way one night in early August 2008, campers claimed to hear loud rumbling despite clear skies. The park still counts many more fragile formations among its attractions, including the blocky, 50-foot red bridge of the lone Vultee Arch.
Though few humans ever locked eyes on the icy cliffs of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, satellites watched when a section the size of Delaware floated free into the Southern Ocean. Iceberg calving is nothing new, but changes this drastic are certainly rarer.
Some 200 tons of rocks toppled from New Brunswick’s “Elephant Rock” Flowerpot Formation last spring, turning a peephole into a pile of rubble. The scenic spot in Hopewell Rocks Park was one of the most popular stops for travellers taking in the remarkably wide-ranging tides of the Bay of Fundy.
There are fewer apostles in Australia’s Twelve Apostles Marine National Park. In 2005, one of the largest and most intricate of the offshore sea stacks crumpled into dust in front of a watching family. Already the remnants of pummelled cliffs, the heavy surf there means the remaining seven apostles aren’t far behind.
The rock walls of Sylvia Flats pools, natural hot springs alongside the chillier Lewis River, were destroyed in a mudslide. Fortunately, other thermal pools—such as Maruia Hot Springs in Lewis Pass National Park—still offer warm soaks a few miles north.
In 2005, the first cyclone to swoop by Spain’s Canary Islands in 150 years toppled El Dedo de Dios (God’s Finger), a needle-like sea stack pointing upwards from a rocky hand.
One of the oldest oak trees in North America died in a cemetery in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in 2017. The massive tree reportedly once shaded a picnicking George Washington and was already some 80 years old when Columbus reached the Americas.
The only acacia to eke out an existence in the Sahara Desert, some 250 miles from its nearest neighbour, the Ténéré Tree became a local landmark in the 1930s before it was allegedly felled by a drunk driver. A metal sculpture (pictured above) now stands in its place. Another desert tree significant enough to feature on otherwise blank maps was Chapman’s Baobab, a “mail tree” in Botswana etched with notes and markings from early Europeans like David Livingstone. Unfortunately, that tree fell in 2016.
